


Inked in Memory

by 221b_hound



Series: Lock and Key [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Anal Sex, Captain John Watson, First Kiss, First Time, Hand Jobs, Kissing, M/M, Post-Coital Cuddling, Post-His Last Vow, Scars, Sherlock's scars, Switching, Tattoos, memorial tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-16
Updated: 2015-01-20
Packaged: 2018-03-07 19:16:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3180047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/221b_hound/pseuds/221b_hound
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John has been back at Baker Street for a year, following the debacle that ended in Mary's death. Things are good. Back almost to what they used to be. Sherlock might wish they were something else, now, but he only has himself to blame, he thinks. It's too late, now, for the things he first denied before he'd ruined any chances he might have had.</p><p>Sherlock also thinks that people who get tattoos are idiots. But perhaps he's about to learn a thing or two, not least of which might be it's not as late as he thinks it is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

John was in his chair, sprawled rather than seated, Sherlock noted. Almost supine, chin pressed to his chest, hands folded over his diaphragm, a frown of deep concentration on his face as he stared at Sherlock’s empty chair opposite. His legs were stretched out and his feet - in socks but not shoes - were almost underneath Sherlock’s chair.

It was almost like John’s stag night, and that was a memory both so poignant and painful that Sherlock instantly dismissed it. Instead, he threw John’s jacket at John’s head.

“Case.”

John tilted his chin to look up at Sherlock, interested. “What brand of mayhem today?”

“Murder. Mutiliation. Not as interesting as it sounds but it has its points.”

John shook his head, but he was also grinning, as he pushed his feet into his shoes and tugged the jacket on. He bent to tie up his laces and Sherlock looked away from the sight of John’s arse thus presented.

 _He’s back where he belongs,_ Sherlock told himself. _It’s enough._

Almost a year now, since… everything. Mary’s death, and the baby’s with her. Her several reluctant betrayals that were betrayals nevertheless. Every opportunity for redemption wasted.

A year since John had returned to Baker Street, to his chair, his room, his place beside Sherlock. Everything was more or less back to normal, now. Even John’s persistent sorrow seemed to have abated at last.

Everything back to how it was before Sherlock had chosen to jump from St Bart’s instead of taking John into his confidence. Hardly progress, really, but it was an achievement of sorts. Sherlock found it frustrating and comforting in turns, and then tried not to think about it.

At the morgue it took Sherlock less than ten minutes to determine the two victims, with chunks of their flesh and skin cut out, had all been tattooed in the last month. The place on their bodies where the tattoos had been were now gaping holes.

Sherlock’s lip curled as he triangulated the home and work places of the deceased, and from there, the tattoo parlours they would most likely have frequented.

“What a puerile thing to die for,” said Sherlock when they fronted up to the first of four establishments. They didn’t even go in. Sherlock shook his head and they were already on their way to the second.

John looked at him sharply. “What? A tattoo?”

Sherlock’s sneer intensified. “Drawing pictures on skin, a painful and messy process. Why would anyone bother?”

“All kinds of reasons,” said John, then he looked away. “Marking important things in your life. Reminders of things that influenced you. People.” He shrugged and looked back at Sherlock. “Just decoration, sometimes. Why not?”

“And if those things changed? You learn to hate the people whose names are now all over your skin until you die? Well, unless someone cuts it out of you, of course.”

John sighed and pushed open the door to the second tattoo parlour. Sherlock poked around while John asked about the artist and talked about designs. He looked at a few examples of caducei. Sherlock interrupted to suggest a caduceus wrapped around a gun. John pointed out that this would make it no longer a caduceus.

Sherlock asked the tattoo artist at the counter whether they did memorial tattoos here. 

“Yeah,” she said, nodding in a way that made the beautiful serpent inked along her neck sway, “That is, we don’t usually do names. Too many people come back a year later and need ‘em turned into something else. But we do kids names, and some memorial tatts, yeah. Might have to reconsider that policy. Someone came in just this morning asking about getting one of those covered up as well.” She rolled her eyes. “Some people ought to think a bit harder before they ink up, ya know?”

“Quite,” agreed Sherlock, and practically dragged John outside.

“Memorial tattoos,” Sherlock said as they headed for the third place, “What a ludicrous idea. Either you remember someone or you don’t. I can’t see why a tattoo should make so much difference. In either case, it’s maudlin sentiment.”

John, keeping pace, frowned.

“What?” Sherlock demanded.

“Nothing.”

“You disagree.”

John hunkered into his coat, as though might shield him a little. “A lot of servicemen have tattoos like that. Other people, too. Apparently, they're much more common in the civilian population than they used to be, too. It’s not about being afraid you’ll forget. It’s about… remembering.”

“I fail to see the distinction.”

John sighed. “A tattoo like that can be… like carrying someone you’ve lost with you. It’s not just a… maudlin _memento mori_. It can help you feel close to them. It’s remembering who they were and what they meant to you. What you learned from them. A lot of people find comfort in it, and strength too. For some, I think it can help lead them out of grief, a bit. Like a part of them is with you still.”

Sherlock stopped dead still, then grinned. “John,” he said with a ring of triumph in his tone, “Excellent. You illuminate, as always.”

Sherlock swept in and out of the third establishment and spent only a few minutes in the fourth. John engaged the person behind the desk with the same discussion about caducei designs while Sherlock pretended to be fascinated by the work currently being done on a wiry woman with a buzz cut and multiple ear piercings, and leaned over the counter to get a closer look.

Outside, Sherlock sent a text to Lestrade: “Illuminati Tattoo, Shoreditch. Ash tattoos.”

John looked at the text as Sherlock hit send. At the puzzled crease in John’s forehead, Sherlock explained briefly: “The practice of turning cremated remains into ink and then having a memorial tattoo done.”

John’s brow wrinkled further.

“So you think _memento mori_ tattoos are all right but using ashes for ink takes it too far?” Sherlock’s tone was on the gentle side of mocking, then he shook his head slightly. “You think it’s unhygienic.”

“Not what I would choose,” John admitted, “Where to now?”

Sherlock presented a typed sheet of paper he’d stolen from the desk. “Here. A list of idiots with ash tattoos.”

“They’re not idiots, Sherlock.”

“They are. And at least one of them may be a murderer, although it’s much more likely they’ll be victims.”

“Sherlock,” said John in a warning tone, and then he fell silent, lips compressed, and he snatched the paper from Sherlock’s hands to look more closely.

His lips only compressed into a harder line as Sherlock stared at him.

“Oh god,” said Sherlock with a certain amount of horror, “You have one, don’t you?”

“No.”

“Not an ash tattoo. A _memento mori_.”

John refused to reply and instead turned the paper over to stare at the blank back of it. He flipped it frontways again to read over the six names again. It clearly didn’t mean much to him.

“From your days in the army? A comrade lost in battle?” Sherlock began, then shook his head, “No. It’s not anything so mundane. The only people you really speak of from that time are Sholto and Murray, and they’re both still alive.”

John flinched, and it dawned on Sherlock not only that he was completely wrong, but that he was being needlessly invasive. Possibly cruel. He frowned. “Oh. I…” he swallowed. “Mary, of course.”

John looked up at him, startled.

“What? God, no. Why would _that_ be the one relationship memorialised on my skin for all time? That’s not exactly what I want to be reminded of every time I’m shirtless.”

John seemed more genuinely irritated than distressed by the suggestion, but Sherlock knew that John sometimes hid his feelings under irritation and gruffness. Instead, to make up for the _faux pas_ , he kept trying to be kind.

“She loved you, John.”

John took a breath and exhaled it slowly, the ire draining away.

“She _tried_ to love me. You were much better at it than she ever was. You may have committed sins of omission, but you’ve never outright lied to me. Or at least… the lying was never about protecting yourself. Even when you… even then, the whole Moriarty thing. That wasn’t exactly about _you_. But… every lie Mary ever told, she told to protect herself. She said it was for me, but it never was.”

Sherlock blinked at John. He’d never spoken of Mary this way before. Frankly, they’d never spoken of her much, even before it all went so spectacularly south.

John, however, was on a roll.

“You’re the one who gave me truth, even when I didn’t bloody want it, and let me decide for myself,” he said with some heat, “You never made me promises based on complete fabrications of who you are. The only lie you ever really told me was one you believed yourself – you’re not a sociopath, by the way. Look it up properly sometime.”

John took a steadying breath and glanced away from Sherlock again, as though that could hide the emotion spilling out of him, not only in his expression and voice, but in his stance. The way he held his hands and body. When John seemed to think he was under control again, he looked up at Sherlock once more.

“Mary honestly did her best to love me, within her limitations, I think. Maybe it’s not her fault she turned out to be so rubbish at it. Everything you did was to ensure my happiness, as far as any of us could figure out where that even lie. Everything Mary did was about her own. She didn’t know how to be any other way. Even when it turned out the baby wasn’t…” Finally, the words petered out, sticking painfully in John’s throat.

Sherlock was still trying to work out what to say to undo the remembering he’d just forced on them, when John shook his head. “If I’d known what he’d done to her, I’d have killed Magnussen myself long before you had to take matters up.” John grimaced. “What an evil, slimy fuckbucket he was. The things he subjected people to, just because he decided he could.”

His nose was wrinkled, mouth pursed, like he’d tasted something not only nasty but poisonous. “God she cried, when she found out it wasn’t mine. She really wanted it to be.” He shook his head again and then straightened up. “I suppose, to be fair, I was fairly rubbish at loving her, too. And I tried. But…”

Once more, the words dried up. His jaw worked, the way it did when he was clamping his teeth down on things he couldn’t, or didn’t want to, say. He regarded Sherlock with a level, piercing gaze, then gave that sharp little nod, the one that always heralded some kind of decision. Sherlock wondered what it was that John had decided.

“So no, Sherlock. There’s no ink on me for Mary. Now. Are we taking the top name on the list, or have you worked something else out?”

“Third name,” said Sherlock distractedly, “The first two are already dead. Weren’t you paying attention?”

John, unspeaking, strode off, irritation making his pace fast.

Sherlock watched John march away, movements military-sharp.

_She tried to love me. You were much better at it._

Sherlock knew that to be untrue. He had not loved John as well as he should have. Or rather, he had loved John as well as he knew how, at any given time, but he had made so many mistakes. He had caused himself, and John, a great deal of pain as a consequence, and he had also, he knew, missed any opportunity he’d ever had.

Sherlock shoved his hands in the pocket of his coat and followed John, catching up quickly with his longer, rapid stride.

*

The case concluded disappointingly, less outré than merely strange. After visiting names three and four on the list, Sherlock, looking at a few photos in each location, had narrowed his ideas down to two theories.

The late Evie Condon’s had died too young, six months ago, of a stupid accident, skylarking around, or rather falling from, the high walls of the Tower of London. Clarice, Evie’s girlfriend, had contrived to pilfer some of her beloved’s ashes from the funerary jar, said Lindy, and also Suneeta. They’d turned it into ink to have love hearts etched on their wrists and arms in her honour. Grace and Mindy were already dead in the last twelve hours. Lindy, Suneeta, Bunny and Clarice remained.

Evie’s strict family had not approved of Evie’s friends. They hadn’t approved of her life in general. They certainly hadn’t approved of Evie having a girlfriend. What they thought of these people helping themselves to their girl’s ashes was anybody’s guess.

Well, Sherlock didn’t guess. He deduced, and based on where each woman lived, was alarmed to realise that name number Five was surely next on the attack list.

When Suneeta was unable to raise Clarice on the phone, Sherlock had texted Lestrade and he and John had raced round to the bereaved girlfriend’s flat, just in time to interrupt an attempted murder.

The late Evie Condon’s brother was a bit odd about wanting to ensure his sister’s entire remains, even reduced to ashes, were properly interred in the family plot. He thought she’d been haunting him. So he’d set about retrieving the parts of her that her dearest friends had seen fit to steal and then put into their own person. Retrieving them had been difficult and messy, and Jay Condon had found it best to cave their heads in with a rock to keep them quiet while he cut his sister out of their bodies again, so he could bury his sister properly.

Of course, most of this came out later. First they had to wrestle Jay Condon to a standstill, and not before Condon had stabbed at Sherlock with a boning knife, only to be punched very decidedly in the face by John. He’d slashed at John, too, but John only noticed the cut later, when the blood dripped out from under his jacket, down his hand and fingers to the floor, and Sherlock saw it.

“ _John_.”

John looked at the blood, then peered at the tear in his jacket and shirt, smeared with blood. “It’s not so bad,” he said, matter-of-factly, “A stitch or two will fix it.”

Sherlock tried not to feel dizzy with relief. He did regret, however, that Lestrade had arrived so promptly. He would have quite liked to provide Jay with a CIA-tried-and-tested defenestration. When he said as much, John only grinned and laughed, like that was a good memory. Sherlock grinned and laughed too, because it was, but he was still unhappy about the amount of blood John had spilled.

*

John would have stitched the wound himself, only it was awkward for him to reach, on his upper right arm. He had good movement in the left of course, but it was still a little short of full movement and he simply couldn’t reach. John didn’t like a fuss to be made, of course. It was Lestrade who made them go to the police surgeon for first aid when they got to the Yard.

Sherlock came into the room as the second stitch was being tied off. He looked at John, sitting shirtless on the table, and wondered that he’d never seen the tattoo before.

Well, John had taken care that he shouldn’t, Sherlock supposed.

The tattoo was of a double-headed padlock. The top lock was open and the bottom one closed. The padlock itself contained decorative swirls that made it look old-fashioned. The loops of the lock made, Sherlock could see, a stylised S, and the design within the padlock shape outlined a subtle H around the keyhole. The whole thing was only about four centimetres high, inked on the left side of John’s chest.

 _Over his heart_.

John saw him looking, and waited patiently. The surgeon finished up, saw Sherlock staring at John’s tattooed chest and John staring at Sherlock and quietly left them to it.

It took Sherlock a long time to say anything, and when he did it was, he knew right away, the wrong thing.

“That’s not how padlocks work.”

“I know that, you git.” Yet John didn’t seem cross. He seemed, instead… fond.

“I… you…” Sherlock swallowed. “You didn’t have that, before I… left.”

“No. It’s a _memento mori_ tattoo. For the dead.”

John should have sounded angrier, or tenser, but he still seemed both composed and … affectionate. Sherlock didn’t understand. Or rather, he wanted to understand, but he was afraid of getting it wrong. He’d made so many mistakes. They both had.

“…Why?”

John’s mouth quirked up in a still-fond smile, though his brow was creased in vexed concern as well.

“Do you really not have the first idea of what you are to me? You were dead, Sherlock. Dead and buried. I’d seen it happen. I’d washed the blood from my hands, afterwards. Later, I washed the dirt from them, after I’d put the handful on top of your coffin. You were _dead_ , Sherlock, and I wanted to remember everything. For all time. To feel you were still close, even though you were gone.”

Sherlock blinked. Hope was beginning to rise, but he didn’t trust it. “It’s over your heart. Why…?”

“Why do you think?”

Slowly, Sherlock reached out to touch the skin of John’s chest. He was surprised to see that his fingers trembled. He willed them still and pressed the pads of his fingers to the improbable padlock.

“John.” His voice trembled, too, which annoyed him, but when it made John look at him with that aching tenderness, Sherlock minded less. He flattened his hand over the tattoo, not to hide it but to feel the heart thrumming underneath the image.

John pressed his hand over Sherlock’s, holding it close to his skin, and Sherlock could feel John’s heartbeat grow stronger and faster.

Sherlock stared, and blinked, and his gaze dropped to look at their hands together over John’s bare chest.

“I… don’t…” he swallowed. “Tell me,” he said at last. He didn’t say the ‘please’ but it was there anyway.

“I loved you,” said John carefully, “And you were dead, and I wanted never to forget. Mary never said anything about it. Maybe she thought only that I loved you, not…”

“Not…?”

“Not that I had been in love with you.”

“You weren’t in love with me.” _Were you?_

“I don’t think I realised it, until you were dead,” said John, tone full of regret and self-deprecation, “But afterwards, it was… blindingly obvious.”

“You can’t have been.” Sherlock’s hand was still pressed to John’s chest, his fingers flexing slightly, fingertips stroking the skin with something like wonder, something like reverence, something like fevered yearning. When he wasn’t looking into John’s face, he was looking at his fingers there, and how John held his hand there too, not removing it. Not moving away.

“I beg to differ.”

“But when I returned…?”

“When you returned, I was furious with you. And as far as I knew, you still weren’t interested in me in the slightest. And there was Mary by then, too, and back then I still thought I loved her. I _did_ love her. Nothing like I’d loved you of course, but I loved her and I thought we could make each other happy. But… well, we know how that ended.”

“And now?”

John met his gaze steadily. “Now… I don’t know. I mean. I don’t know how you feel. I’ve thought sometimes that… like the night of the wedding. That you… felt the same about me. But there I was, brand new wife, just been told we had a baby on the way, committed. We’d lost our chance. Our timing sucked.”

Sherlock exhaled a shaking breath and his hands were trembling against John’s skin again now. His fingers flexed against John’s chest, and John’s fingers flexed over Sherlock’s fingers.

“So. Sherlock.”

Sherlock stared.

“How do you feel?” John prompted.

“I… I…”

“It’s okay, you know. If it’s not… if it’s still not our time. That’s okay. It’s how it’s always been. I loved you, you loved me, but we never realised it at the same time, in a world where we could do anything about it at least. It wasn’t your area, or I was in denial, or you were dead, or I was married or…” John swallowed again and smiled, a small gesture, but full of warmth. “It’s just never been our time. And if it’s still not our time, it’s okay. It’s not like it hasn’t been incredible. It’s been good, you and me. Best friends. We’ve loved each other, even if we never were… like that. Even if we never are together like that. I don’t regret a minute of our friendship.”

Sherlock lifted his other hand, hanging loosely till now at his side, and carefully placed the edge of his fingers against John’s jaw. The hope was stronger now. It was certainty, really, and John had stated his position quite clearly, and Sherlock had deduced the sincerity of it, but he had lived for so long on denial and then resignation that he didn’t quite dare to believe the evidence.

John’s free hand lifted to rest on Sherlock’s waist. His fingers moved in tiny, stroking motions, as though they longed to do more, but restraint was, as always, John’s _modus operandi._ At least, until there was cause enough to unleash the other John. Sherlock smiled a little, thinking of that John. Thinking that perhaps the John who was the opposite of restraint was very near the surface.

“But… it might be… _now_ ,” John said into the gravid silence. “I think it might be the right time for me, now, anyway. And if it’s the right time for you too, then that’s… good. But it’s fine either way. You’re my best friend, Sherlock, and I love you, and you love me, and that’s all good. Really good. So if it’s not what you want…” At Sherlock’s continued stillness, he began to withdraw.

“I want…I think…” Sherlock interrupted him, to stop John’s withdrawal, but then he stalled. He blinked. He took a breath at John waiting patiently – _hopefully_ – for him to finish. “It might be. The right time. For me, too.”

John’s smile grew wider and Sherlock found his own face morphing into a matching smile. For a few moments they remained as they were, touching and smiling, until John cleared his throat a little.

“Ahh. We could… if you want to… we could kiss now…”

Sherlock took a short, sharp breath, as the idea suddenly arrived in his brain, with a kind of fanfare, after being so long repressed. _Oh god, yes. Yes_. So much waiting. So much pretending he didn’t want, and then wanting and unable to have, but here they were, the offer made and accepted. He could kiss John now. If he wanted to. John certainly wanted to.

Sherlock swallowed and swayed towards John, a graceful falling into the gravity of John’s orbit, and John tilted his head up a little, falling somehow upwards into Sherlock.

It was a strange blend of awkward and certain. It was brand new and so deliberate, and for a moment no-one knew where to put hands or noses.

Then their lips pressed together, and it was shocking and perfect, brand new and yet tenderly familiar. The stuff of longing, much repressed. It was soft and gentle, not mad with passion but perfect with belonging.

John, more used to kissing, it seemed, finally made a small _mmffph_ of pleasure and parted his lips slightly. The tip of his tongue brushed lightly against Sherlock’s lower lip.

A breathless, tiny moan was unearthed in Sherlock’s chest and sighed out of him, as he parted his own lips a little so that he could press his mouth more closely to John’s.

John pressed Sherlock’s hand harder to his chest – Sherlock could feel John’s nipple pebbling beneath his hand, and flexed his hand again to feel the skin and muscle, and another soft moan escaped him as he held John’s face and felt John’s tongue sliding over his, and John’s hand on his waist shifted at last, succumbing to impulse, to hold Sherlock, pull him closer.

A door opened. It closed quickly. It opened again, more softly, and the two men ignored it in favour of this feeling, this incredible sensation, of kissing, _oh_ , kissing at last.

When the kiss finally ended, they stood there in the first aid room, grinning at each other like idiots, until a pointed tap on the door got their attention. Sherlock stood back and watched while John, flushed and smiling, rebuttoned his shirt.

*


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After all these years, and all the things (including their own blindness) that kept them apart - it's the right time at last for John and Sherlock. After their first kiss, they are home at Baker Street - and with their return, the first of many firsts. And ultimately, a commitment scribed in ink.

John Watson knew he was in love with Sherlock Holmes. He’d realised it for the first time after Sherlock died. But love, as a feeling or even as an action, was not the only motivator of a man’s life, and when Sherlock returned from the dead, cavalier and mocking of John’s pain (or so it seemed to John at that time) he’d been not merely furious but _enraged_. He’d felt so hurt and betrayed. Belittled, as though the love he felt was of no consequence to the object of his affection at all.

Well, that had been a long time ago, and John understood a lot more about love, about Sherlock, about the two of them and what they were prepared to do, and lose, and sacrifice for each other.

John tried to be a decent man, but he was fairly certain he wasn’t what you’d call a _good_ man. Not if you really knew him. He’d tried to be a decent man with Mary, and he’d loved her. She’d dragged him out of the grief he’d been lost to ever since he believed he’d seen Sherlock die. She’d never commented on the tattoo on his chest, that stylised S in the shape of a padlock, except to say ‘You loved him’. A statement that contained acknowledgement and acceptance.

Now, long after Mary's own, much more real and permanent death, John was able to acknowledge that what he’d loved best about her were the things in her that made him think of Sherlock. The sharp wit; the way she challenged him. Cleverness and mystery.

Sitting in his chair that morning, slumped and reflecting on how he and Mary had failed each other in that regard, he thought of Sherlock at their wedding. The look in his eyes. _He loves me too. I’ve known it for a long time. We’ve made a right bollocks of this._

Then he thought of that dreadful stag night, which had been actually pretty fantastic in parts, and remembered their post-it game. How funny it was that the way John thought of Sherlock was, it turned out, exactly how Sherlock thought about John.   _Nice-ish. Clever. Rubs people the wrong way._

_He thinks I’m clever._

John was entirely too pleased by that. He knew he was bloody clever. Not Sherlock-Holmes-genius clever, but who was? And Sherlock was very much not clever in key ways. It was why they made a good team. They were alike enough, and different enough, and they fit together perfectly.

Pity they’d only really both realised it at the wedding, when it was much too late. Too much stood between them – history, and hurt, and in that moment a wife and a baby.

 _Not any more_ , John thought. _Not really even then._

Sometimes, John didn’t know whether to be sad or relieved at what had happened. He did know, though, that he was glad to be back here at Baker Street, at home. With Sherlock.

Then Sherlock had thrown a jacket at his head and off they went to solve crime, and somehow throughout that day, John had confessed to the existence of his tattoo, and then to the reality of his love, and to Sherlock’s – which Sherlock did not deny. Acknowledged in turn, in fact.

_It might be the right time for me, too._

And a kiss so perfect that they had simply been waiting all these years for the time to be right for it.

*

The doctor who had stitched the wound on John’s arm had given him and Sherlock a strange, smug kind of grin and a cheeky salute as they’d left the first aid station. Sherlock had grandly ignored the gesture and John had simply grinned at it. A few minor paperwork details were completed, a taxi ride home – silent, but the companionable silence filled with a happy expectation – and now home.

John paused at the base of the seventeen steps leading up to their flat. He looked at Sherlock, to his left, looking back at him with a smile lingering at the corner of an expression otherwise given over to curiosity.

John wanted to kiss him again.

What he did, though, was to hold out his hand. Sherlock only stared at the hand as though he didn’t understand. John kept his hand out and waggled his fingers. He was beginning to think it had been a bad idea. 

Then, with an expression somewhere between _what is this curious experiment?_ and _this is more wonderful than I could have imagined_ , Sherlock stretched out his own hand and tucked it into John’s, lacing their fingers together.

It felt strange but also right and perfect, just as the kiss had done. 

John squeezed Sherlock’s fingers. Sherlock squeezed back, and hand in hand they walked up the stairs, to their home. They didn’t look at each other now, though they smiled as they glanced at the steps ahead, and from time to time Sherlock glanced across to see where their hands joined.

There was a bit of awkwardness at the door, getting it open and getting inside when Sherlock seemed so reluctant to release his grip. John knew the feeling. But he gently pulled away and rather than fight it, Sherlock let go. His face was ghosted with disappointment, but John met his gaze and something in his blue eyes seemed to reassure.

John hung his own scarf on the hook, and then he tangled his fingers with Sherlock’s as Sherlock was unwinding his own scarf. Sherlock let his hands fall away and John finished removing and hanging the scarf on its hook. Sherlock waited until John had hung his own coat next, then he turned and let John help him take off the Belstaff, which John hung on its peg, right beside John’s coat.

Sherlock turned to face him again. Then he… sort of lunged at John, arms enveloping him, diving in for another kiss he’d waited much too long to have, and they tripped on the carpet.

Sherlock, eyes wide with alarm, twisted to break John’s fall at the same time that John, with an undignified squawk, wrapped his hands around Sherlock’s skull to protect it as they landed inelegantly on the hearthrug, like so many clients before them.

For a stunned moment, they stared at each other wide-eyed, and then Sherlock shrugged as though to say ‘ _what can you do?_ ’ and John began to laugh, and then they were both giggling, and then they were kissing again. Mouths pressed together, warm and insistent, and then John wriggled a bit along Sherlock’s body so that he could kiss Sherlock’s face, cheekbones and temple, cheek and jaw, back to his lush lips, until Sherlock tilted his head so that he could nuzzle at John’s throat and begin to suck at the skin.

John shifted his legs slightly so that one knee was between Sherlock’s. He propped himself up slightly so he could run his fingers through Sherlock’s hair.

“I’ve always wanted to do this.”

“Always?” Sherlock’s voice was deep and a little rough.

“Almost always. I think from when I came in answer to that blasted text message on that first case to find your lazy arse flaked out on the sofa.”

“I was thinking.”

“Yeah. So was I. Naughty things.” John grinned and sat up, bum resting on Sherlock’s thigh. He undid the top button of Sherlock’s shirt. “Is this okay?”

“Yes. Stop talking. Keep going.”

John kept going until all the buttons were undone, and he pushed the fabric back to reveal Sherlock’s chest. He ran his fingers over Sherlock’s chest and they both sighed. John had touched him often before, in the pursuit of first aid mainly. Never like this. They had never permitted such tenderness before.

Then John leaned over and kissed the scar beside Sherlock’s ribs. The mark of Mary’s dubious compassion. It had been a kindness of a sort, John supposed. She might have shot Sherlock through the head, and thus destroyed both Sherlock and John utterly.

He nosed at the scar, and kissed it again, open mouthed, softly and tenderly.

Sherlock’s hands, which had been stroking John’s back, stilled. “John. Don't.” 

John raised his head to look into Sherlock’s concerned gaze. “I'm not thinking of her,” he said, “I'm thinking about you. What you did for me. You gave me the truth. You trusted me. You put what I needed above everything else, and it wasn’t easy for any of us.” John brushed his fingers against Sherlock’s cheek and into his hair. “You…” he began, but then the words dried up, because he still found this sort of thing difficult. But they both knew.

Sherlock began to sit up, arms moving to hold John close, as John leaned down, and there was another brief tangle that resolved itself into kisses, still perfect with belonging, yes, but now the passion was waking up. Now that it was acknowledged and allowed.

Mouths and tongues and fingertips and palms roamed. John pushed his nose and mouth into Sherlock’s hairline, nuzzling and tasting, while Sherlock scraped his teeth over John’s skin, stopping to suckle marks that he would then lick and kiss before moving on. John helped Sherlock strip his shirt completely off, then helped Sherlock undo the buttons of his own shirt.

John pushed Sherlock back onto the floor and their legs tangled together and hips began to push in impatient want, before John’s knees began to ache. He clutched Sherlock close as Sherlock, shoving John’s shirt aside, nibbled at John’s tightening nipple. Then he pushed Sherlock back to the floor again, so that he could have his turn, licking and sucking at Sherlock’s nipples and belly.

Sherlock’s head dropped back to the floor with a heavy clunk and he hissed.

“Rolling around on the sitting room floor wasn't actually one of my prime scenarios for this development,” said Sherlock, a little irritably.

John sat up again, but he just grinned at Sherlock’s discomfort. “It was one of mine, sometimes,” he confessed with good humour. At Sherlock's raised eyebrow he huffed out a laugh. “Or the sofa. Sometimes in the hall or on the stairs.”

“That would have been ill-advised,” asserted Sherlock, obviously amused, “We’d end up bruised all over and in physiotherapy for a month.”

John laughed. “I know.” He bent to kiss Sherlock’s mouth again. Sherlock, responding with enthusiasm, wrapped his arms around John and used his strength to turn them, so that John was beneath him on the floor. Limbs and tongues were tangled again for a moment before John broke the kiss this time, laughing ruefully.

“You're right. This is uncomfortable. I'm damned if I'm going to cripple myself this first time with you. Bed.”

Sherlock rose and held out a hand to help John to his feet. “We can try out the other scenarios later, if you like,” he promised with a spark in his eye. “My room now, I think. The bed is larger and was freshly made only this morning.” He led the way. “The light is also better. And I have lubricant in my dresser drawer.”

“Plus the sheets are more expensive and your room’s closer,” pointed out John.

“There is that,” agreed Sherlock readily. Then he stopped, dead still, at the touch of John’s palm to the back of his neck.

John ran his hand softly down Sherlock’s spine, pausing again between his shoulder blades. His fingers caressed the two scars there, intersecting stripes on his pale skin. The other marks had healed, invisible, but the two worst ones had left these reminders.

John had known about those scars too, of course. He’d treated Sherlock for a variety of minor injuries since his return. He knew little else about them, except that Sherlock had not had them before he leapt from St Bart’s, and that they had probably been fresh injuries not long before he returned. John wasn’t an expert, but he did know a thing or two about what scars looked like as they aged.

John stepped in close behind Sherlock and kissed him at the base of his neck, and again between the shoulder blades. He pressed his cheek to the warm skin and exhaled.

 _How close have we come to never finding our time?_ John thought, and then he dismissed it. He moved to stand at Sherlock’s side and slid his hand into Sherlock’s again.

Sherlock turned a very little so he could kiss John’s temple, and they walked together to Sherlock’s bedroom. There, John took his shirt off completely and Sherlock smoothed his hands over John’s ribs before bending to kiss first John’s old scar, and then the padlock tattoo. He licked the ink, too, before kissing his way back up, over pectoral muscle, clavicle, throat and jaw.

John pressed himself into Sherlock’s hold, and they kissed, resuming their soft, warm exploration of each other’s mouths.

It was almost like the countless rehearsals in his head, John decided, only much, much better. His imagination hadn’t always sufficiently supplied the details. The bristles of Sherlock’s jaw, and the warmth of his breath. The faint flavour of mint and the scent of a light aftershave. The softness of that full lower lip and the flutter of eyelashes against his skin.  

The fire was fully fanned in John now, the mad passion beginning in earnest. John kicked off his shoes then kissed his way down to Sherlock's belly, while Sherlock took a deep, ecstatic breath and gave himself up to the sensation of it. John could almost see Sherlock cataloguing it as it happened, and it made him smile.

John rubbed his hands over Sherlock’s long legs, thighs and calves. He urged Sherlock to lift one foot, then the other, to remove shoes and socks while Sherlock steadied himself with a hand on John’s shoulder.

John unbuttoned Sherlock’s trousers, looking up as Sherlock looked down, rapt. Then John pulled Sherlock’s trousers and boxers down over Sherlock’s hips and, before he could step out of them, leaned close to mouth at Sherlock’s erection. He kissed and licked the thickening cock and then opened up to suckle a little at the glistening head – to get used to the feel of a cock in his mouth for the first time in ten years. Sherlock had his hands in John’s hair, holding but not pushing, and made the most glorious, breathless sounds.

John slid his mouth further down the shaft, licking and sucking until Sherlock made a gruff, wanton noise in the back of his throat, then pulled off to bury his nose in the crease of Sherlock’s thigh. Then he kissed and lipped his way to Sherlock’s navel. 

Sherlock moaned, reached down to hook his hands under John’s armpits and hauled him back up and kiss him stupid for a second, before turning and shoving John, who was laughing with delight, onto the bed. Sherlock kicked his trousers and pants off and loomed over John.

“You have an unfair advantage,” he accused.

“Seems a disadvantage from here,” said John, wriggling his hips a little. Sherlock took the hint, unbuttoned John’s jeans and had John naked in a matter of seconds. Then his large hands were rubbing all over John’s legs – down his thighs and over his knees and shins to his ankles, then up the other side, over calves, under knees to the hamstrings then further up, squeezing John’s arse. John, far from shy, moaned and lifted his legs in encouragement. He opened his eyes with a gasp a moment later at the sensation of Sherlock’s tongue licking a stripe up his cock.

Sherlock, eyes bright and skin flushed, waited until John was looking straight at him before pushing a long index finger into this mouth, sucking it lavishly, then running the wet finger over John’s cock, his balls and under, to circle against his anus. He kissed John’s cock, which jumped at the touch, and licked his scrotum before sitting up to look at him again.

“I have scenarios too, John,” he said wickedly.  

John arched into the touch and then away. “We'll need to shower for some of those,” he panted.

“True.” Sherlock knelt between John’s spread legs and latched onto a nipple with teeth and tongue. John arched into him again and Sherlock let go. “But not _all_ of them.”

“Like what?” John was grinning at him.

Sherlock crawled along, sliding his body along the length of John’s. He lowered his head, warm body hovering above, the end of his cock trailing over John’s, and he lowered his head to murmur hotly into John’s ear:

“Tell me what to do. Captain.”

John’s blue eyes sparked bright and he surged up to sit with Sherlock kneeling astride his thigh. “Get the lube,” he commanded crisply.

Sherlock got the lube. John nodded at the mattress and Sherlock put the tube down precisely where John had indicated.

“Good.” John crowded close to Sherlock, arms around him tight, and kissed him again, only this time with hungry demand. Sherlock made a sound like a whimper and clutched to John’s shoulders. John lowered him to the mattress, but then moved away.

“Spread your legs,” he said and Sherlock, eyes on John’s, spread his legs.

“That’s it. That’s good,” John murmured, stroking his hand over Sherlock’s stomach and raking his fingers through his pubic hair. Sherlock’s cock twitched towards the touch and John, unable to resist, licked the crown of it.

Sherlock moaned.

“Not a sound, now,” said John sternly, and Sherlock blinked, compressed his lips. Obeyed.

“Touch yourself,” said John then, at Sherlock’s eye roll, he grinned. “Oh, so you want explicit instructions do you, soldier. Good. Put your hand on your cock. I want to watch you wank yourself.”

Sherlock grinned, wrapped his hand around his prick and began to stroke the shaft. His thumb slicked over the crown to gather pre-come, and on every fourth or fifth stroke he dropped his hand to caress his own balls before returning to the task of making himself harder and hotter and wetter. He gasped, once, but John ordered, “Not a sound!” and Sherlock fell once more utterly silent, even his breathing, though John could see Sherlock’s chest and throat quaking with the effort.

John watched him, avid, rapt, cock hard like it hadn’t been in, he thought right then, his entire bloody life. Sherlock was silent but John’s breath was coming in ragged panting breaths.

“Stop now. That’s it.” John moved to kneel by Sherlock’s head. “Now suck me.”

Sherlock rolled onto his side and engulfed John’s cock with his mouth, and he sucked and licked and, apart from those wet, sliding noises, maintained his instructed silence. It took only a short time before John commanded him to stop again, and by then John was almost shaking in need.

“Christ, Sherlock. Jesus Christ,” he murmured, equal parts reverence and lust, “On your knees.”

Sherlock turned easily onto this hands and knees, and deliberately did not spread his legs until ordered. His body shuddered with desire and the effort of maintaining silence while John squirted lube onto his fingers and over Sherlock’s hole, and while John slowly and patiently worked him open.

John dropped a kiss onto the small of Sherlock’s back, and ran his hands up and down the rise of Sherlock’s backside, down his thighs.

“Christ, you’re gorgeous,” he murmured.

Forbidden to speak, Sherlock waggled his arse as an impatient gesture. John pinched one beautiful mound of muscle, then smoothed the spot with the palm of his hands. Then he positioned his cock against Sherlock’s entrance and shifted his hips slightly, so that the crown of him nudged at the opening.

“If it hurts, say something,” he said, hands stroking Sherlock’s hips.

Sherlock, instead of waggling this time, pushed back a little. John took his cock in hand and rubbed it over the puckered skin until Sherlock’s shoulders were shaking again with that effort for silence. John smoothed a hand down Sherlock’s back again, reassuring, then once more held to his hips. He raised himself up a little higher on his knees, and Sherlock hunkered down a little further, chest to the mattress, arse in the air.

Slowly, John pushed himself into Sherlock’s warm, willing body, and he had to will himself to silence then, or risk crying out not only in physical pleasure but the heart-thundering joy of finally being _here_ , him and Sherlock, wanting the same thing at the same time at last. Being with Sherlock who he thought he’d lost not once but many times, to death, to disinterest, to circumstance, but no. They loved each other, and now they were…

John moaned as he became fully seated in Sherlock’s body. He drew back a little, lathered on more lubricant and pushed again. Once more, and once again, as Sherlock’s body quivered beneath him and pushed back to meet him, again and again.

“Stop,” breathed John, curling one hand underneath Sherlock, across his abdomen, and laying his stomach and chest across Sherlock’s back. He pressed his mouth to Sherlock’s ear. “Stop. Just for a second. God. You feel so good.”

Sherlock swung his head to one side, to nudge at John’s cheek.

When John moved to sit up, he slid out briefly, but both arms were curved around Sherlock’s torso now, and he gently raised Sherlock to sit up with him, to sit, legs splayed, in his lap.

“Lift up,” John said, guiding him with his hands as well. Sherlock raised himself up on his knees, and John positioned them both. “Now down.” Sherlock lowered himself, still guided, onto John’s stiff, aching prick. John moaned again as Sherlock bore down.

“Fuck. That’s it. That’s good.” John left one arm across Sherlock’s chest, holding him upright, and his other hand he wrapped around Sherlock’s slick cock. He stroked. Sherlock, soundless, threw his head back and clutched at John’s ribs behind him.

“Move,” whispered John, “Move, Sherlock, god please, move, and I want to hear you now. Please. Sherlock. God, please, I want to hear you.”

And Sherlock moved, with a guttural groan that rumbled wantonly from his chest and right through John’s body, pressed close to his back. Sherlock raised himself up on his knees, thrusting his cock into the circle of John’s hand, and then pushed down, impaling himself on John’s cock. He curled his hips backwards as he did, pushing John in deeper, then forward as he rose again, curling into John’s fist. He was panting now, the deep groan of pleasure rumbling through their joined bodies, over his lips, and the sound of it was driving John gloriously mad.

“Fuck, yes, Sherlock. Good. That’s so good. Christ. Yes. God. That’s it.” John dipped his hand down to fondle Sherlock’s balls, as he’d seen Sherlock do, then rubbed his thumb over the crown, then gripped him again with that perfect pressure. The low groan rose in pitch briefly to a breathless whimper, then dropped low again.

John kissed the back of Sherlock’s neck. Bit it. Bit at the dark curls and tugged at them briefly with his teeth before burying his nose in Sherlock’s neck again and whispering, “God, yes, more. Move, yes, like that, harder, oh fuck…” Then, unable to resist a moment longer, he rose up on his own knees to provide more room and begun thrusting up to meet Sherlock’s downward grinding.

Sherlock’s cry of pleasure was followed by a sudden, breathless litany of: “John, fuck, yes, fuck me, John, god, harder… ah ah ah…” and then Sherlock’s body bowed in John’s arms as he came hard, fucking himself on John’s cock and into John’s fist, while his hands grabbed onto John’s ribs. John held Sherlock’s body upright and close with one arm and as Sherlock subsided he kissed and kissed and kissed Sherlock’s bare back.

Sherlock wilted and slumped onto the mattress, braced shakily on his forearms, but he pushed back, because John, still hard, was sliding out of him.

“John. Don’t stop.”

John spread Sherlock’s cheeks with his hands, nudged his cock against the entrance and then he pushed inside. Sherlock spread his legs again as he moaned.

“Fuck me,” Sherlock commanded.

John, never so happy to obey an order in his life, took firm hold of Sherlock’s hips and pulled Sherlock’s body against him as he thrust forward, harder, faster, and in eight strokes he was coming, his whole body shaking with it.

After, he melted against Sherlock’s back and they sagged to the mattress. John pulled Sherlock in close to his body, arms wrapped around him, and he continued to kiss Sherlock’s neck and spine and shoulders sleepily. Sherlock hummed a baritone approval and held John’s arm close around his waist.

“You like to top,” Sherlock murmured.

“I like it lots of ways,” said John muzzily.

“Oh.” A pause and John kissed Sherlock’s hair. “You like to switch. Like me.”

“Mmm,” agreed John

They dozed.

Half an hour later, John stirred to realise he was pressed along Sherlock’s thigh. Sherlock was sitting up, leafing through a photography magazine, something to do with an ongoing case. John wriggled closer to kiss Sherlock’s leg. Sherlock glanced down at him. He dropped one hand to card through John’s hair and rubbed his thumb across the top of John’s ear.

John, through his sleepy satiety, supposed that Sherlock might not be used to sharing a bed with anybody. Well, apart from those occasional cases outside London where they had been mistaken – or not so much mistaken as pre-emptively recognised – as a couple and given a double room. John smiled to himself as he remembered the last time, three months ago, when he’d woken in the middle of the night to see Sherlock moving restlessly on the room's sofa. John had grumbled _Oh for god’s sake_ and shoved the bedding back in invitation, then rolled over to go back to sleep. As he’d drifted off that time, he’d felt the bed dip as Sherlock joined him on the mattress. He had listened to Sherlock’s breathing. He’d liked it, listening to Sherlock right next to him there. It felt right and comfortable. John had fallen almost instantly asleep again, and in the morning Sherlock was gone. His pillow and the dent in the mattress had still been warm, and John had snuggled into the heat and scent of it briefly, an indulgence, before rising.

It was nice to find Sherlock still next to him, this time, but John was under no illusions. They had loved each other for a long time, being exactly who they were. Sherlock was still Sherlock; John was still John. There would be changes to work out, certainly, in time, but John didn’t feel there had to be any hurry. Whatever changes were coming would come naturally.

So John opened his eyes a little and said to Sherlock, who was regarding him carefully, “Are you going to toss me out of bed, now?”

Sherlock was surprised, then his expression softened. “No. It took too long to get you into it.” He stroked John’s hair again. Pleased, John nudged into the caress and closed his eyes again. He felt the bed shift as Sherlock changed position.

“I love you,” John murmured into the room.

Sherlock’s fingers traced over his brow this time. “John.” Then he seemed to dry up.

John once more opened his eyes a crack, and once more found Sherlock looking at him. “I know,” John said with a soft smile, “I know you do.” He kissed Sherlock’s skin again – a rib this time, was nearest, and fell back to sleep.

When next John woke, he had his arms full. His left arm was curved around Sherlock’s back, and his right was across Sherlock’s arm, which was wrapped around John’s waist. Sherlock’s head was nestled on John’s chest, ear pressed to the tattoo, over John’s heart. He had one leg over John’s, the other pressed up against John's thigh.

John kissed the crown of curls on his chest and for the final time, he slept.

Sherlock was still there when John woke up, but Sherlock had clearly been waiting for John to rouse.

“Shower,” said Sherlock peremptorily.

John mumbled something that sounded like ‘Why?’

“If you want more sex today,” said Sherlock matter-of-factly, “We shower first. We have _lists_ , John.”

Grinning, John clambered out of bed. Before they got back to it, two days later, they had tried a few more scenarios in other locations, including a shared one involving John naked, thoroughly scrubbed and kneeling, facing backwards on his armchair while Sherlock rimmed him to delirium then, while John held the pose, Sherlock worked his way underneath, shoulders supported by the seat cushion and sucked John off while kneading his arse. Sherlock’s chair also came in for its own share of carnal inventiveness, to their mutual amusement and delight.

*

And so life at Baker Street continued, just as it always had and yet nothing like it had been. The lovers were still best friends. There was still sniping and insignificant quarrels about body parts and the chores, just as there was still laughter and companionable silence. There were clients and crimes, challenges and danger. There was still giggling at crime scenes. And they were still the scourge of both London criminals and London law enforcement.

But now, they were also entwined in bed on lazy mornings, or other items of furniture on lazier afternoons. There were passionate embraces as they fell through the front door and defied near-misses with teeth and tongues, and fucking each other with abandon on the sofa, the hearth rug (and one memorable occasion on the landing outside the door, while Mrs Hudson turned up the TV pointedly loud, and they still didn’t hear it until they were mutually spent and rueing the rug burn on their knees).

Everyone noticed of course that Sherlock and John were the-same-but-different. Once, Greg joked that he was expecting an invitation soon. Sherlock gave him the raised eyebrow and a piercing glare, but John only laughed and said that his commitment was already in ink. Greg looked puzzled at the response, but Sherlock looked thoughtful.

Six months later, John returned from a medical conference in Glasgow that had lasted four days. He dropped his bag as he stepped through the front door and, locating Sherlock emerging from the kitchen with two cups of tea, he strode up to him. He relieved him of the tea and wrapped his arms around Sherlock’s waist.

“That was tedious,” he said, “Well, not entirely, but I missed you and… Why do you smell like Bepanthen?”

John lifted his head from Sherlock’s shoulder and stepped away. Sherlock stood there with an expression that clearly said: _don’t be an idiot, John_.

John, not an idiot, reached up to undo the top button of Sherlock’s shirt. He undid all the buttons, and Sherlock held still to let him. The sides of the shirt parted to reveal Sherlock’s chest, and the dark ink over reddened skin on the left side.

John held his breath a moment, and then sighed out, long and slow.

“That's Raphael's work,” he said. Then smiled. “You found the artist who did mine. Of course you did.”

“It took a while,” Sherlock conceded. He didn’t need to ask whether John liked it. The answer was obvious in the glow of John’s eyes and the way his body swayed towards Sherlock’s. “I’d made a sketch of yours, to ensure the dimensions were correct.”

John pressed his fingers to Sherlock’s chest, to the side of the new tattoo, and stroked his skin.

“It’s beautiful.”

The tattoo on the left side of Sherlock’s chest, over his heart, was an ornate key, marked with the same type of patterns adorning the _memento mori_ padlock on John’s skin. It only took a moment to see that the old-fashioned key and its jutting tooth were a stylised J, and that the head of the key, rising in three bumps, contained a W amongst the swirls. The size was a perfect match. It looked made to go into the padlock on John's chest.

John rubbed his thumb alongside the image. Sherlock watched the thoughts chase each other across John’s face for a moment, but when John didn't speak, he did.

“I didn’t see why I should have to wait for your funeral to inscribe a… reminder of what you are to me,” he said, determined not to be self-conscious. “To show that I carry you with me, even when you’re not here. It’s more a… _memento vivere_. Or perhaps a _memento amorem_.”

John leaned up to kiss him, and Sherlock kissed him back for a long time before murmuring in John’s ear: “I love you, John.”

“Course you do,” agreed John happily, in the process of pushing Sherlock’s shirt off his shoulders. Sherlock obligingly got to work on John’s belt, “And you’re good at it,” John added. He paused to gaze earnestly into Sherlock’s eyes. “I don’t mean just the sex. Which you are great at, by the way.”

Sherlock laughed and slid his hand down the back of John’s jeans to squeeze his arse.

“But everything. All of it.” He rubbed his thumb over Sherlock's old bullet scar now, and then kissed Sherlock under his jaw, against the pulse.

“Thank you for my miracle,” he murmured.

“Thank you,” said Sherlock, nuzzling into John’s hairline, “For mine.”

*

They never did formalise anything with a wedding. Their commitments were already carried on their bodies and in their souls. Written in ink.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock's take on the Latin for his memento tattoo was provided by Google Translate, so it's probably wrong. I hope the idea communicates itself anyway.  
> UPDATE: A reader has assisted with the correct Latin and the text has been updated. Thank you!

**Author's Note:**

> This story was prompted by several things, including an article I read about the growing popularity of memento mori tattoos, a post on Tumblr about John and Sherlock being totally out of synch but that maybe their time is coming, and a skin-crawling post noting that Magnussen's office in his big, flash office building contained a double bed, and what that might mean about Mary's baby.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Cover Art] for "The Lock and Key Series " by 221B_Hound](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3254090) by [Hamstermoon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hamstermoon/pseuds/Hamstermoon)
  * [Inked in Memory Book Cover](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10371447) by [Vvulpes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vvulpes/pseuds/Vvulpes)




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